Page 78 of Always: A Legacy Novel

“Well enough to sell drugs?”

“Where is this conversation going?” Cross asked.

Catherine shrugged. “I’m curious—we come from the same world, don’t we? I know what that means to me. I’m privileged. I always have been. My family is respected, but not for reasons people talk about, and they’re feared, for those same reasons. It means sometimes my father’s face is on the news, or in the papers, and I have to pretend like it isn’t. I wonder what it means to you.”

“That’s not exactly the same question, Catherine. It is, in a way, but it isn’t at the same time. Do you get what I mean?”

“No.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because I’m a girl, and you’re very much not. I think you have a whole different perspective on everything just because of that, Cross.”

“Then yes,” he said in a murmur, “you know exactly what I mean. You want me to fill in details, that’s the difference.”

“Did you know who I was and who my family was before?”

“Yes.”

“And you never wanted to talk or ask about it at all?”

Cross waved a hand, and said, “We have rules, okay. We don’t talk—”

“About family or business, I know.”

“Then don’t ask.”

“I asked about you, so.”

Clearly, she was not going to drop the conversation.

“To me, it means my priorities are different at times,” Cross said quietly, “and not entirely the same as yours or an outsider’s might be. I have goals, but they won’t match yours. I have interests, but they’re not necessarily acceptable or appropriate. It means my morals are skewed sometimes, and I stretch boundaries a lot more than I should—usually until they snap all together. You’re right, it’s different because I’m a guy, but it’s not any less smothering, Catherine. Trust that.”

“I never said it was smothering.”

“But it can be.”

“Yeah, it can be,” she agreed.

“Do you really care?”

Catherine glanced over at him. “About what?”

“My last name. If I’m like you. Would it ever make a difference?”

“No.”

Cross grinned. “Oh?”

“But it might make it better, so yeah, maybe it would make a difference.”

He didn’t ask why. He didn’t really need to. It made things better because it was good to have someone who understood without needing to have everything explained.

“What is this place?” Catherine asked as he finally pulled the Rover to a stop.

Old, rusted train tracks started just twenty feet ahead of the Rover. The entire place was basically abandoned, with overgrowth piling up and buildings starting to fall down.

“Not really sure what it is,” Cross said, “but I learned how to drive stick back here a few months ago. Zeke got fucking hammered out here one night; I didn’t have a choice but to learn how to drive a stick shift real fast. Sometimes there’s parties out here, but not Academy kids—I only know a few of them, through Zeke. They drag race through here, too. Really just depends.”